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THE AMERICAN SWORD 



LEWIS F. CRAWFORD 

President State Board of Regents, 
North Dakota 



Complijnents of the 
North Dakota Public Library Commission 






The Two Swords 



("The Hymn of the German Sword" appeared in a German 
paper pubhshed in Leipzig, Germany, and has been widely copied 
in papers of other countries. A copy which came to the attention 
of Lewis F. Crawford, Sentinel Butte, N. D., president of the 
State Board of Regents, impressed him so strongly, that he pre- 
pared "The American Sword," as a contrast to the spirit shown in 
"The German Sword.") 



HYMN OF THE GERMAN SWORD 

It is no duty of mine to be either just or compassionate ; it suf- 
fices that I am sanctified by my exalted mission, and that I blind 
the eyes of my enemies with such streams of tears as shall make 
the proudest of them cringe in terror under the vault of heaven. 

I have slaug'htered the old and the sorrowful ; I have struck 
off the breasts of women ; and I have run thru the bodies of chil- 
dren who gazed at me with the eyes of the wounded lion. 

Day after day I ride aloft on the shadowy horses in the Valley 
of Cypresses and as I ride I draw forth the life blood of every 
enemy's son that dares to dispute my path. 

It is meet and right that I should cry aloud my pride, for am I 
not the flaming messenger of the Lord Almighty? 

Germany is so far above and beyond all the other nations that 
all the rest of the earth, be they who they may, should feel them- 
selves well done by when they are allowed to fight with the dogs 
for the crumbs that fall from her table. 

When Germany the divine is happy, then the rest of the world 
basks in smiles ; but when Germany suffers, God in person is rent 
with anguish, and, wrathful and avenging, He turns all the waters 
into rivers of blood. 

D. Of D. 

JAN 25 19J3 



THE AMERICAN SWORD 

I am the American sword. 

I have never been unsheathed except in the cause of justice and 
humanity. 

I punish only under solemn and compelling obligation. 

In my presence national perfidy and dishonor never go unchal- 
lenged. 

I opened in generous trust to all nations the portals of American 
opportunity and gave equal rights to all' in the inheritance created 

by the toil and blood of our ancestors. 

In me everything that is good finds approval, everything mean 
meets rebuke. 

My people are enticed to love me by the gentle persuasiveness 
of my life. 

I am the visual enchantment of the downtrodden and the op- 
pressed ; the emblem of national honor ; the embodiment of the 
world's hope. 

In me is linked the command of duty with the love of Calvary; 
it is mine to trace the hidden equities of divine reward and connect 
national wrong-doing with its swift retribution ; under me fulfill- 
ment adds splendor to the gorgeous jSIosaic pi our dreams. 

O Kaiser! obsessed with power, drunk with passion, enemy of 
peace and right and freedom thruout the word, slayer of age and in- 
fancy, ravisher of virginity, spreader of contagion, fiend incarnate ! 

Against thee barren fields cry out in protest ; venerated works of 
art and architecture, hallowed by the centuries, thou has crumbled 
under shells of frenzy ; thou art wasting the fiower of the world's 
manhood in red ruin spurred on by the grim reaper of Hate. 

Thou international brigand, enslaver and robber of Belgium, 
looter of Servia, betrayer of neutrals ! thou art a pirate running 
mad on the pathless sweep of oceans, plundering and murdering 
on the world's highway. 



Diplomatic intriguer, thou hast faithlessly broken age-old 
treaties, thou hast torpedoed hospital ships, bombarded defenseless 
cities, and unleashed liquid fire and poison t^as — outlaw demons 
of destruction. In this epilepsy of the world's horror thou art not 
bowed with a sense of unfathomable guilt and sodden shame ; thou, 
the arch gutter-snipe of civilization, art more unsparing than Tor- 
quemada, more cruel tlian Xero, more atrocious than Caligula, more 
crafty than Geronimo ; thou hast loosed the hosts of ill upon a 
peaceful world and darkened the heavens with blasphemy. 

Thou art chased by the maddening billows ; the deeps, in malice 
open to receive thee ; ashen faces turned toward flame-lit skies, ap- 
peal for vengeance. 

My presence gives courage to endure the appalling strain and 
omnipresent peril of battle. 

I bestow superhuman nerve, sleepless caution, capacity for sac- 
rifice, and the justice of my cause palsies the hand of brutal might 
and insensate ambition. 

I pity the victim, not the violator ; the sorrows I bring wear no 
weeds of mourning. 

I open a new era in history ; I fire the human soul with new 
daring and new ho])c ; I will sur\ive this conHict and pronounce 
its sentence. 

When the name of Kaiser shall have lost its stench and been 
covered by the dust of remorseless centuries, I shall still be glorified 
as the main stay of democracy — the peace-maker of the world. 

Lkwi.s F. Cr.\wford, 

President State Board of Regents, North Dakota. 

Sentinel Ikitte, North Dakota, November, li)17. 



Reprinted by permission of the Quarterly Journal of the State University of North Dakota 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 527 463 6 



